The Curious Engineer

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Going Medieval

going-medieval.com

Medieval History, Pop Culture, Swearing

HistoryEssays / personal

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
195 from 26 May 2017 to 25 Nov 2025
Posting
now and then (1 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://going-medieval.com/feed/

2025 6

  1. On contrarian history
  2. On AI and the golem
  3. On Crusades, or, how not to identify with losers
  4. On what Americans know about medieval history
  5. In praise of difficult histories, or, I saw Edward II at the RSC and it was so so so good
  6. On what we choose to remember

2024 14

  1. On spooky animals
  2. On side hustles
  3. On body count
  4. Let me explain something to you: the mendicants
  5. On gossip
  6. On fake medieval devices – both torture and sexual
  7. On Delft Old Church
  8. On obscenity and modernity
  9. Bologna’s medieval canals
  10. On women’s anatomy and the power of paying attention
  11. Let me explain something to you: periodisation and the Middle Ages
  12. On secret romantic communications
  13. My fav saints: St Margaret of Antioch
  14. On the Black Death in Africa and Asia, and the interconnected Middle Ages

2023 13

  1. My top medieval books of 2023
  2. Doctor does actually mean someone with a PhD, sorry
  3. No, “the Church” did not kill Joan of Arc, you credulous dullards
  4. You are not, in fact, the granddaughter of the witches they couldn’t burn
  5. On sickness and conspiracy
  6. Against Voltaire, or, the shortest possible introduction to the Holy Roman Empire
  7. On successor states and websites
  8. On the 11,000 virgin martyrs, iconography, and beauty standards
  9. On cats
  10. On nobility, courtship, moral justification, and sexy tapestries
  11. On dating advice and men
  12. Medieval Women Were a Vital Part of the Workforce. We Can Learn from Them – for Time
  13. On women who talk, and also write books

2022 16

  1. On maintaining monarchical succession
  2. Podcast alert: medieval abortion on History Hack
  3. On beer, or, why chicks rock
  4. On heteropessimism and maternal expectations
  5. On disavowing sexual assault
  6. On medieval kink (part 2)
  7. A medieval abortion reading list
  8. On medieval kink (part one)
  9. On conflating drag, (and femininity), with sexuality
  10. On men, romance, and trick questions
  11. My fav saints: St Sebastian
  12. On indulgences
  13. On women, pleasure, and semen
  14. On non-written communication (in Norwich)
  15. On finding inspiration for change
  16. Podcast alert: The Conceptualization of sex on Way Too Interested

2021 37

  1. Podcast alert – Medieval Christmas on You’re Dead to Me
  2. On visiting Westminster Abbey
  3. On cathedrals and cooperation
  4. On the commemoration of the dead, and poppy season
  5. Podcast alert – Fare Thee Well: the timeless endurance of Renaissance Faires for 1A
  6. On looking in the past for a better future
  7. On periods, and the dudes who fear them
  8. On Margery Kempe and the Bad Art Friend
  9. On apocalypticism, extinction rebellion, and ahistorical cosseting
  10. On semen retention
  11. On the power of pushing back against the marginalisation of sex workers
  12. On bad summers
  13. On leisure in August
  14. On damsels and influencers
  15. Podcast alert – Medieval Contraception at Medievalists.net
  16. I assure you, the Black Death was actually bad
  17. On putting sex work on the map
  18. Sneak Peek: The Middle Ages, a Graphic History (out now!)
  19. Annoy a medievalist Bingo
  20. A Very Short Introduction to the Black Death
  21. Radio alert – Going Medieval on White Supremacists on 1A
  22. On women having sex with themselves
  23. On the commemoration of royal death
  24. So I made a TV series
  25. On canonical hours, comfort, and daylight savings
  26. On pickup lines
  27. Podcast alert: The myth of the “Dark Ages” on History Hack
  28. There are no white knights
  29. Podcast alert: Tiny Titty Apocalypse on LOL My Praxis
  30. On the myth of short life expectancy, and COVID complacency
  31. On history versus chronicles
  32. On weather, winter, and changing climates
  33. Podcast Alert: We’re Not So Different
  34. On slavery, propaganda, and “apolitical” history
  35. Podcast alert: Medieval sexuality on Tangentially Speaking
  36. Podcast alert: Coup Anon on QAnon-Anonymous
  37. Podcast alert: Gender and sex in Medieval Times – a conversation on Gender Stories

2020 47

  1. On treating sex with the utmost reverence
  2. On men born in the Summer
  3. On Advent
  4. Magna Carta will not save us
  5. A brief introduction to Antipopes
  6. On No Nut November, then and now
  7. My fav Saints: St Procopius of Sázava, a spooky saint
  8. Podcast alert: Medieval medicine on Sick to Death
  9. On colonial mindsets and the myth of medieval Europe in isolation from the Muslim world
  10. Podcast alert: Medieval martial arts on the Sword Guy
  11. On Masculinity and Disease
  12. On Michaelmas
  13. On Q Anon and Antisemitism
  14. On constructing the “ideal” woman
  15. Podcast alert: A medieval Education on History Hit
  16. On sermons and the vernacular
  17. On collapsing time, or, not everyone will be taken into the future
  18. Podcast alert: Medieval sex demons, cold wet women and the plague on Storyteller
  19. Plague Police round up, or, I am tired, and you people give me no peace
  20. On Sex with Demons
  21. WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE MOON? a post, because everyone is confused
  22. On the Agas map of London, medieval and early modern cities, and life
  23. Podcast alert: How to win friends and influence people in medieval Europe on History Hit
  24. If you’re going to talk about the Dark Ages, you had better be right.
  25. On martyrdom and nationalism
  26. Podcast (well, webinaire) alert: The Medieval Sex Apocalypse on Drinking with Historians
  27. On a world without police
  28. Religious iconography has always been a prop
  29. Medieval policing and race reading lists
  30. On Odious Debt
  31. Doing it Right – A Short Introduction to Medieval Sex for Nerd Nite
  32. On the Lusty Month of May
  33. My fav [not] Saints: St Guinefort
  34. Podcast alert – talking medieval women on History Hack
  35. Podcast alert: Talking sex in the medieval times on Holly Randall Unfiltered
  36. On “alpha” men, sexual contagion, and poorly disguised misogyny
  37. On the King’s two bodies and modern myth making
  38. Chatting about plague for HistFest
  39. A Black Death reading list
  40. On individual blame for global crises
  41. More Black Death Opinions, now at the Washington Post
  42. Emergency post: That is not what the “good” in Good Friday means
  43. Not every pandemic is the Black Death
  44. Patreon Launch
  45. On the plague, sex, and rebellion
  46. No bestiality was never OK, you absolute rabid weirdo
  47. On Prague, Preaching, and Brothels

2019 22

  1. On defeats, small people, and the UK election
  2. JFC, calm down about the medieval Church
  3. On courtly love and pick up artists
  4. On the bull semen explosion, animal husbandry, and how medieval people were nicer to cows
  5. On Medical Milestones, the Myth of Progress, and Textbooks, Part II
  6. On Medical Milestones, Being Racist, and Textbooks, Part I
  7. That’s not what sodomy is, but OK
  8. Yet another podcast
  9. I assure you, medieval people bathed.
  10. On Virtual Tours of Medieval London
  11. On colonialism, imperialism, and ignoring medieval history
  12. On city walls, symbolism, and being behind the residents’ gates at the Barbican
  13. On sexualising the “other”
  14. On Jezebel, makeup, and other apocalyptic signs
  15. On QAnon and Systems of Knowledge
  16. On Women and Work
  17. Let’s Talk About Game of Thrones part 3: Holy Roman Imperial Edition
  18. On Sex, Logic, and Being the Subject
  19. The Medieval Podcast – Medieval Sexuality with Eleanor Janega
  20. On the Objectification of Sex
  21. On “the way of carnal lust”, Joan of Leeds, and the difficulty of clerical celibacy
  22. On Dildos and Penance

2018 11

  1. My fav saints: St Wenceslas
  2. On St Nicholas
  3. On No Nut November
  4. On cuckolding – a thing
  5. Considering bad motherfuckers: Hildegard of Bingen and Janelle Monáe
  6. On Incels and Courtly Love
  7. On sex work and the concept of ‘rescue’
  8. Announcement Time!
  9. Emergency Pubcast – Why the Pope can’t just say there’s no hell and do me like that
  10. On Mike Pence, Holocaust Memorial Day, and Christian interpretations of Jewish utility
  11. On Courtly Love, Sexual Coercion, and Killing Your Idols

2017 29

  1. On the Medieval secret to a balling Christmas, for once.
  2. On Jerusalem and the Apocalypse, or, why you should be deeply unsettled right now
  3. That’s not what chivalry is, but OK
  4. On the Ideal Form of Women
  5. A short history of Jan Hus, the Protestant leader you’ve never heard of, or, Martin Luther jacked Hus’s whole style
  6. “I wasn’t taught medieval history so it is not important” is not a real argument, but ok
  7. Look up – this church is judging you
  8. FUCK YEAH Genghis Khan – an emergency pubcast
  9. History is a discipline, not a virtue
  10. The history of penis in vagina as default sex at BISH!
  11. On the concept of the Renaissance and Outkast’s Hey Ya
  12. Sex and the (medieval) city: social hygiene and sex in the medieval urban landscape
  13. There’s no such thing as the ‘Dark Ages’, but OK
  14. On medieval healthcare and American barbarism
  15. Keep the word ‘Judeo’ out of your racist mouth Nigel Farage
  16. On chronicles versus journalism, and ruling versus governing
  17. On the medieval separation of Church and state, or, putting the ‘holy’ in Holy Roman Empire
  18. On the American election, teaching history, and why it matters
  19. On women and desire
  20. Such a nasty woman – on Eleanor of Aquitaine, femininity, reputation, and power
  21. On power and entitlement to the bodies of lower-status women, or, the thing that IS actually medieval about Trump
  22. On why the misuse of the word ‘medieval’ is a bad thing – part of an on-going series
  23. Islam was the party religion, or, why it is lazy and essentialist to say that Islam oppresses women
  24. These hoes ain’t loyal – on prostitutes and bad bitches in medieval and hip hop culture
  25. The medieval case for remain, or fuck Brexit
  26. On Hotline Bling and courtly love
  27. Let’s talk about Game of Thrones part 2: on marriage and Sansa
  28. Let’s talk about Game of Thrones part 1: Byzantine Constantinople
  29. Kanye West is the modern day Peter Abelard (except for the whole Heloise thing)